Reports

Factors such as soil type and precipitation vary across rangeland landscapes, and these factors affect restoration outcomes and ultimately mean that “one size fits all” management strategies are not effective across large, complex landscapes. Big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) is a foundational rangeland species that is important to wildlife habitat across the western U.S. On the...

Freshwater ecosystems of the Alaskan Arctic and Subarctic provide resources that are culturally, ecologically, and economically invaluable. Presently, these regions are relatively free of the impacts from invasive species compared to southern latitudes. To date, there have been relatively few verified introductions of aquatic invasive species (AIS) to freshwater ecosystems in Alaska. The...

Located in North Central Utah, Emigration Canyon is a prominent and historic canyon that runs northeast from Salt Lake City into the higher elevations of the Wasatch Mountains. The Wasatch Range is characterized by steep, rocky slopes and 26-44 millimeters of annual rainfall, both of which contribute to a high threat of wildfire. The area’s landscape is diverse with oak woodland at the...

Selenium in aquatic ecosystems of the lower Gunnison River Basin in Colorado is affecting the recovery of populations of endangered, native fish species. Dietary exposure is the primary pathway for bioaccumulation of selenium in fish, and particulate selenium can be consumed directly by fish or by the invertebrates on which fish feed. Although selenium can be incorporated into...

Executive Summary

Bathymetric data were collected at 10 water-supply lakes in north-central and west-central Missouri by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and in collaboration with various local agencies, as part of a multiyear effort to establish or update the surface area and capacity tables for the surveyed lakes. The lakes were surveyed...

As part of the Chesapeake Bay Program's (CBP's) Science and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) initiative "Achieving Water Quality Goals in the Chesapeake Bay: An Evaluation of System Response", an Estuary Working Group was formed to generate an assessment of scientific knowledge gaps, uncertainties, and recent ecosystem changes to consider in light of CBP's impending goal of full...

Indiana’s water resources—in streams and lakes, in plants and soils, and underground—are a critical component of the state’s economy and well-being. Availability of this important resource is driven by precipitation and temperature patterns, both of which have shifted in recent decades, and is also highly influenced by how we manage natural and human systems. As local temperatures...

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean conventional resources of 7.3 billion barrels of oil and 463.7 trillion cubic feet of gas within the Barents Sea area.

Mineral resource assessments performed by the U.S. Geological Survey provide a synthesis of available information about the location of known and suspected mineral deposits. This study focuses on skarn-hosted tungsten resources in the northern Rocky Mountain region of east-central Idaho and western Montana which have seen moderate tungsten trioxide production in the past from a variety...

Bathymetric and velocimetric data were collected by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Missouri Department of Transportation, near 15 bridges at 10 highway crossings of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers near Washington, Louisiana, and St. Louis, Missouri, on August 3–10, 2020. A multibeam echosounder mapping system was used to obtain channel-bed elevations for river...

The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) Hinkley compressor station, in the Mojave Desert, 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles, California, is used to compress natural gas as it is transported through a pipeline from Texas to California. Between 1952 and 1964, cooling water was treated with a compound containing hexavalent chromium, Cr(VI), to prevent corrosion of machinery within the...